Schroeter’s body of work includes photography, stage plays, opera and film.

“The interesting thing about Schroeter is that he is one of the gayest filmmakers I have ever seen,” says Noah Cowan, artistic director at TIFF Bell Lightbox. “A gay identity — a kind of queer identity of a particular kind — looms large in his movies.”

Many filmmakers, including Xavier Dolan, are fascinated with Schroeter, Cowan says.

“A lot of people talk about it as being a cinema of excess,because he shoves so much in every frame,” Cowan says.

Schroeter, who died in 2010, was part of the New German Cinema along with Win Wenders, Werner Herzog and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.